Help needed: Killing Golems with mage

Need some quick advice. Playing a cheatkeepered dual barbarian to mage halforc. Her barbarian levels (9) was just for fun and HP, she is mainly intended to level as a mage but it's very convenient to use DUHM and Rage at the same time to max out STR. She only uses swords, katanas for dak'kon's blade. Just for fun I had planned to add all the +spell slots items to her.

Anyways, she has level 6 spells currently and are alone in the Sphere with Jan Jensen who has level 5 spells atm. She has memorized most spells she has come across so far, so she has a decent selection of standard buffers, debuffers and damage spells.

And so on to the actual question; playing mainly on insane and alone, 'cept for Jan's support arcane and thievery when needed, how can I deal with the golems in the second level of the sphere? On Insane, even without added damage, there are I think three clay golems and one iron golem spawned on each side of the demon heart machine. Buffed up and using the DoE (my best blunt weapon atm) I can take down maybe one of the golems before I am overwhelmed. I have tried to check through my spell list but can't really see what I should memorize to win this fight.

So, what can you recommend me? FYI this is not a RP playthrough and I've metagamed a bit and killed a lot of characters just for the EXP, so anything goes!

I have just built her to see for how long those 9 levels of barb can make her still decent in melee (as opposed to the classic kensai build) and then continue mainly as a mage once her melee prowess start to taper of.

Comments

I believe that , with up to level 6 spells you can summon level 5 and level 6 elemental summonings cam hit the golems. Since those bastards are pretty tough, I suggest you buff them with all sorts of spells such haste, invisibility (for a 1st shot) , and perhaps some weaker summons as fodder while the elementals hit the golems. Your mage can alsp cast melf's minute meteors and hit the golems from afar.

The easiest way is to shoot them from distance - leaving just a single clay golem in each group that won't last long against you in melee.

You could also just use lots of summons.

For something a bit more exciting just buff yourself up. With stoneskins, mirrors, blur, II, improved haste, DUHM etc you would be competitive - particularly if you've got the girdle of bluntness as well. If you don't mind using resources then potions like absorption, mind focusing and power could leave them requiring criticals to hit while you probably need a critical to miss .

If you want to get exotic then go to town with lower resistance to make them vulnerable to your spells.

Thanks for all your tips and tricks. Haven't had time to play since I came home on saturday. Sorry that I haven't responded earlier.

I don't have IH or tenser's yet since I did this quest fairly early. My charname have a lot of the scrolls from the vendors since I did the exploit with thieving/selling to buy the best stuff right after Irenicus dungeon. I want the EXP since this is a powergamey run with minimal party to max the EXP for charname, but going in with invisibility is a good last resort if all else fails.

What summons do you think would work best, are any summons better vs the golems than others? Also, does anyone know if the golems hit as magic weapons or normal weapons? I don't think I ever tried PFMW actually (I only tried twice before I had to quit).

If you aren't cheese-averse, you can always have Jan turn himself invisible and stand in front of you. (Make sure you turn off party AI.) If you position yourself at a chokepoint where golems can only approach from one direction, they'll try to walk up to you, get blocked by Jan, and then just stand around wondering why they can't advance anymore. You can pass InvisiJan, they cannot.

This is only useful if you have ranged weapons capable of taking them out. For Stone Golems, anything that's +2 or better will do. For Iron/Adamantium Golems, you'll need +3 or better. The returning dart from Watchers' Keep is perfect for this, though if you don't have it yet you can't exactly leave and get it. As @Ammar mentioned, there's always Melf's Minute Meteors, which hit as a +5 weapon. You'll have to do a lot of resting, but beggars can't be choosers.

Clay Golems are immune to piercing damage, which includes all ranged weapons, (even throwing hammers!), so no such luck with them. But once stripped of their Iron/Stone escorts, they're usually doable on their own.

Typically problems like this are why Planar Sphere and Planar Prison are saved for later in a run; they're the only two quests where if things go sideways, you can't just leave and come back later.

If you aren't cheese-averse, you can always have Jan turn himself invisible and stand in front of you. (Make sure you turn off party AI.) If you position yourself at a chokepoint where golems can only approach from one direction, they'll try to walk up to you, get blocked by Jan, and then just stand around wondering why they can't advance anymore. You can pass InvisiJan, they cannot.

If you aren't cheese-averse, you can always have Jan turn himself invisible and stand in front of you. (Make sure you turn off party AI.) If you position yourself at a chokepoint where golems can only approach from one direction, they'll try to walk up to you, get blocked by Jan, and then just stand around wondering why they can't advance anymore. You can pass InvisiJan, they cannot.

This is perfect! Will try this the next chance I get.

(Also worth noting that "Invisible party members blocking hallways" is actually really solid general-purpose cheese that can trivialize any section of the game that features narrow hallways and enemies that have no ranged attack and can't see through invisibility. In particular, it's extremely useful if you ever find yourself over your head against Mind Flayers, as long as you remember to cast Chaotic Commands on your visible ranged attacker first.)

Yeah, I did it recently with a shadowdancer playthrough but then I usually had two or even three invisible party members in most fights, charname, Valy etc. Oddly enough the thought hadn't crossed my mind when I only have two chars in my party but since the big golem can't get through himself and blocks a portion of the way, one char should indeed be enough to block the clay golems and let my charname kill them off with whatever twohander I have in my bag of holding.

Melf's minute meteors will damage all golems. Polymorph self ogre form has a nice, enchanted heavy morning star that can crush clay golems IIRC, as well. Buffed well, a polymorphed mage can melee to deal with the golems.